By telling us why we love, 1 John 4:18–19 sets right the nature of the relationship between humans and God. The difficulty, of course, is the word “fear” which has been an important term in Christianity from the get-go, mostly due to the phrase “fear of God.” While it is healthy for us to have a certain type of fear (e.g., a reverence or respect for God’s awesome power), it is not healthy for the believer to live in constant fear.

Paul agrees with this in Romans 8:15:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (ESV)

The type of fear that we are concerned with here, I think, is specifically about judgment — judgment leads to punishment and we have an intense fear of being punished. However, Christians, because they are abiding in God in this mutual admiration, this love, should have no fear. Instead, their love should cast that fear out. We do not live under fear of judgment because Christ’s blood has vindicated us and separated us from our former sin and former selves. In this sense, God’s love cannot be perfected in us if we have fear of punishment. Rather, we should live boldly and confidently knowing that we are abiding in him.

Humans are not meant to abide in God out of fear of judgment or fear of death. Rather, humans abide in God because of his intense love. The relationship is built on mutual admiration!

Finally, the author gives us the precise reason for why we love God: because he loved us first. This is a really simple formula. We are drawn to God because he is drawing us to him. Unfortunately, we work too hard to resist this pull, and to some degree God allows us to resist.